Monument Rocks in Gove County/Kansas Tourism
With gas prices still a concern for conservative Kansas families who want to spend their vacation money with people who don’t hate them, this is the right summer to forget expensive blue state destinations and make your “staycation” Kansas Red.
You’ll feel better supporting business people who think the same way you do as the world rids itself of the terrorist hoard in Iran and gets smacked by higher gas prices in the process. And staying out of those blue urban cesspools means you’ll be a lot less likely to catch a stray round in a drive-by shooting – a real plus for any vacation.
The 2024 Kansas election map offers a starting point. Trump carried Kansas with 57.16 percent of the vote, but several rural counties went far beyond that mark in their effort to help Make America Great Again.
Wallace County led the state at 91.71 percent for Trump, followed by Sheridan at 89.51 percent, Ness at 88.41 percent, Gove at 87.89 percent, Jewell at 87.04 percent, Stevens at 86.92 percent and Scott at 86.32 percent. Wichita County kept the faith at 86.05 percent, Greeley at 86 percent and Phillips at 85.77 percent.
Quite an impressive showing for God’s Country.
It’s also a travel guide to places where Kansas’ small towns, family farms, courthouse squares, local cafes, rural museums and outdoor spaces still define the culture of Real America. Wallace County, the most pro-Trump county in Kansas, offers Mount Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas, along with the Fort Wallace Museum and the frontier history of Sharon Springs and Wallace. Wallace County’s own tourism listings point visitors toward Mount Sunflower, Fort Wallace Museum and local recreation stops.
Gove and Scott counties may offer the best scenic value for the gasoline. Monument Rocks and Castle Rock give visitors the dramatic chalk formations many Kansans have seen in photographs but never visited. Scott County adds historic Lake Scott, Battle Canyon and El Quartelejo Museum, creating a western Kansas history-and-scenery loop suited for families who want something more meaningful than some water park or shopping mall weekend.
Ness County offers one of the state’s most memorable small-town landmarks: the old limestone bank building in Ness City, long nicknamed the “Skyscraper of the Plains,” the competitor to the Borthwick bank, where George Washington Carver borrowed $300 in the late 1880s and used his sod house as collateral.
Stevens County gives travelers a different kind of Kansas story, with Hugoton’s gas-field history and the Stevens County Gas & Historical Museum — a fitting stop for readers interested in energy, production and the working economy.
For those wanting something closer to eastern Kansas, the same idea can be applied regionally. Anderson County itself gave Trump 79.08 percent of the vote in 2024, while nearby Allen, Bourbon, Coffey, Linn, Miami and Franklin counties all offer shorter drives for the majority of the state’s population in its eastern third. Small-town restaurants, lakes, county fairs, museums, antique shops and patriotic summer events abound close to the state’s urban rings, amid people who believe in the same traditional American principles you do. It’s the best summer formula: spend less on fuel, skip the blue-hued corporate tourist traps. Spend more in Kansas towns that still depend on local dollars.
Seriously – does it mesh with your values to plow your vacation money into New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Denver – places working hard to keep their homelessness, their potheads, their sanctuary law breakers and boys in girls sports?
In a summer of high costs and the historic defeat of the world’s primary sponsor of terror, that kind of trip does more than save money. It keeps Kansas dollars with the right kind of people – right here in Kansas. ###
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
